Snail Sneaking
by Plogop
Summary: A bizarre one-shot. Involves Hermione's "One true master", Harry and Ron "guarding" the "philosopher's stone" and being incredibly stupid. Might be funny if your sense of humour is similar to that of me and my sister. Otherwise, well, it won't be, and I don't pretend everyone will find it funny.


Hermione was sneaking. She hadn't much experience with sneaking, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Her footsteps were light, almost like a snail's, and she edged past the couple just as slowly.

"Hermione?" said Ron. Hermione batted her eyelids.

"Ohh, Ron! Why don't you go back to sleep?"

"Because I'm supposed to be guarding the philosopher's stone, to teach me about responsibility. Hey! I know, Hermione, can you make sure nobody sneaks past here?"

Hermione looked to the still-sleeping form of Harry, thinking it was a sad thing that she hadn't brought enough sleeping gas for the two of them.

"Alright," she agreed, "But only if you go to sleep. Otherwise I'll... Hmm... Oh, I know. I'll be too self-conscious with you watching me guard."

Ron, who was not the brightest coconut in the bunch, thought that this made perfect sense, and obligingly breathed in the sleeping gas that Harry was exhaling.

"Perfect," Hermione muttered to herself, once Ron was safely asleep. Now she could get her hands on the Philosopher's stone, and finally give it to her one and only TRUE master!

Harry, who often had nightmares that woke him up, had a nightmare that woke him up quite abruptly. He sat upright, looking around and, upon seeing that Hermione was there to protect him, sighed; he was glad that he wouldn't have to kill anybody's parents tonight.

"Hey, Hermione," he said. Hermione gave him a small wave, then pressed a finger to her lips and pointed to Ron's unconscious body.

"Oh, right," whispered Harry. Hermione nodded; she was usually right.

Then Hermione realised she had a problem. Harry was not asleep, and she wasn't sneaking anymore! Quickly, she levitated a troll's club and dropped it on Harry's head – this was her plan B.

"Hey, why is there a troll's cl-" said Harry, before falling to the ground.

Hermione resumed her snail-sneaking and proceeded into the room that her two friends had been guarding. "Friends". Hermione chuckled at the thought – they didn't realise that quotation marks had been placed around their friendship yet.

"Sneaking, sneaking, in my sneaking shoes~" she sung to herself.

The door creaked loudly as she closed it behind her. Harry looked up briefly, snuggled closer to the spike-ridden troll's club, and fell back asleep.

Hermione walked further into the room, trying to locate the philosopher's stone. She needed to give it to her master. Doctor Granger, her father, her one true master, had been very enthusiastic when he learned of a stone that could grant immortality. She only ever wanted to please her dad.

Right then, her eyes fell on a seemingly innocuous pebble lying in the corner of the room. She seized it, and then sneaked back out towards Harry and Ron. Looking at the pebble as she walked, she began to notice that it didn't seem to be emitting any elixir of life. When she re-entered the area, Harry and Ron were standing there with their arms crossed, looking smug. Until horror suddenly overtook Harry's features.

"_YOU!"_ he shouted.

"Me," said Ron.

"RONALD, HOW COULD YOU?" said Hermione, proceeding to snail-sneak toward the exit.

"It was _you_?" said Harry, confused. Ron smiled, not realising how his amusement at the situation could be mistaken for smugness.

"But now – but now, I'm... or, _we're_ going to have to kill your mum and dad! And I _like_ your parents. And, actually, _you_ do, _too_."

Hermione was going to fess up and take the guilt off Ron, but she decided that acting to please her dad and then having him killed wouldn't be what a good daughter would do.

"Actually..." said Harry, slowly, "Maybe we can just find another pebble, one that looks just like that one... And our Auror Examiners will never know."

Hermione was shocked! This wasn't the real stone? Then she remembered. It had been destroyed in her first year at Hogwarts. Sadly, she held up the pebble.

"You mean one that looks like this?" she said to Ron and Harry.

"Yes," they said simultaneously, and continued wracking their brains for a solution.

"Well..." said Hermione, "You can use this pebble if you want."

Harry and Ron liked that Hermione was helping them. She was, in fact, so helpful that Ron decided she deserved a reward. They considered what the opposite of killing somebody's parents for punishment would be, and concluded that Hermione was entitled to Ron's parents and the corpses of Harry's, as well.

When presented with this lovely reward, Hermione was not as grateful as they had been anticipating. It seemed she didn't want _any _form of competition for her father.

"...Thank... you?" she said, no longer quite so certain that they hadn't found her out.

They replaced the pebble, and Harry sighed. He missed his parents, now that he had given them to Hermione.

A single tear rolled down his cheek.

**My sister and I wrote this together, taking turns at writing one sentence each. Prior to writing the story, we wrote a summary taking turns at writing one **_**word**_** each. Here is that summary, if you're interested:**

**Hermione sneaks past the couple who threatened to do permanent things to anyone they caught sneaking past them.** **Because the couple, Ron and Harry, were extraordinarily inattentive, and very irresponsible, they just decided to make everybody who questioned them injured, by killing their parents. Harry knew how much that hurt. **


End file.
